CAIRO - Hundreds of thousands of Egyptian Islamists and other supporters of Mohamed Morsi, the country's first freely elected president who was ousted and detained by the military last week, filled public squares in Cairo and other cities on Friday in an intensified campaign aimed at returning him to power.
The size of the protests underlined the large section of society that has rejected the military intervention on July 3 that deposed Mr. Morsi after protests by millions against him and the continued split over the country's direction.
With many of Mr. Morsi's Islamist supporters finding new motivation during the holy month of Ramadan, which started on Wednesday, the largest pro-Morsi sit-in, in the Cairo suburb of Nasr City, swelled to take on an increasing air of durability.
Speakers attached to lampposts blasted the voices of speakers, singers and Koran readers on a central stage. Hundreds have tents have been erected on traffic islands and on side streets, where protesters fasting during the midday heat sleep on blankets, sheets of cardboard or the naked asphalt.
The sit-in also serves as a safe zone of sorts for Muslim Brotherhood leaders and other members who are among the hundreds who have been put on wanted lists by the authorities since Mr. Morsi's ouster.
Speaking in a wing of the mosque at the center of the sit-in, Mohamed el-Beltagy, a former Parliament member and Brotherhood leader, laughed off his status as a wanted man, but said he had not left the encampment in days.
"I'm not scared, but I stay here for the revolution," he said.
The authorities have accused him and other Brotherhood leaders of inciting violence against the army.
Mr. Beltagy rejected statements by the new interim prime minister that held out the possibility that he may offer ministerial positions to members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
"They are shooting us and calling us terrorists who belong in prison, so how can they offer us ministerial portfolios?" he said.
Denying that there are any negotiations between Brotherhood leaders and the authorities of the military-led interim government over a way out of the crisis, he said that they would accept early presidential elections, but only after Mr. Morsi is returned to power.
"We have no objection to early presidential elections after the return of the president and the Shura Council and the Constitution," he said, referring to the upper house of Parliament. "We have no problem with early presidential elections, but under elected institutions, not under a tank."
Other protesters said they too foresaw a possibly protracted sit-in to press their demands.
"I'll stay until president Morsi is back in the presidential palace and the military is back in its barracks," said Sayed Ragab, 43, and English teacher from a town north of Cairo who has not left his tent camp in eight days.
He and his friends and brought wood to build a tent, covered it with a tarpaulin and then laid out blankets for all to sleep on. Since the start of Ramadan, they have put their money together to buy food, mostly an Egyptian fava bean dish called fuul.
"Ramadan and fasting increase our will to continue," he said, brushing off a question about not eating or drinking from sunrise to sunset in the heat.
Others said they had come not only to express their political opinions but also to soak up the atmosphere. Merchants have been plying the streets with everything from staplers to T-shirts reading "martyr project" to paper masks of Mr. Morsi's face.
Jihan Darwish said she had been bringing her four children, ages 10 to 18, every day for the last week.
"We walk around, listen to the speakers on the stage, meet people and sit in the shade and read the Koran," she said.
She said that she had no intention to sleep at the sit-in but that she would keep returning.
"We'll keep coming back until the return of the legitimate president because what happened is a military coup," she said.
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